Jesse VanDerPol Web Designer, SmartyPig Who are you, and what do you do? My name is Jesse VanDerPol and I am Web Designer for SmartyPig. I like shiny new hardware, video games, beautiful design, and having a few too many toys on my desk to be taken seriously. My number one goal is to make things pleasing to the eye while keeping them easy to use. I am currently working on SmartyPig’s PhilanthroPig project, which is a payment engine & web app CMS for non-profits. I handle the web site design and front-end development. What hardware are you using? I am typing this at work on an 21” iMac (3GHz Core2Duo, 8GB RAM) connected to a 25” display. I also have a Quad-Core HP (3Ghz AMD X4, 6GB RAM) which I remote into for source control and testing. I have a computer hoarding problem. Much to my wife’s dismay, I own a 15” MacBook Pro (2GHz CoreDuo, 2GB RAM) from 2006 & in need of replacement, a PowerMac G5 (2.5GHz Quadcore PowerPC, 4GB RAM) from 2005, a personally built game PC (3GHz AMD X4, 8GB RAM), 13” MacBook (2.2GHz Core2Duo, 2GB RAM) and two older AMD custom boxes. I no longer turn on the PowerBook or iBook that sit on a storage shelf. I spend most of my computing time on one of the Macs, my iPhone4 or most recently the iPad2. For virtual sketching I use my Intuos4 Medium or if traveling a Bamboo Pen&Touch. For physical sketching and note taking I use a Uniball Vision .07mm, which are wonderful pens with great flow for an affordable price (and spin-able!). Moleskins are what I primarily do my chicken scratching on. And what software? As funny as this would sound to my past self, I primarily use Adobe CS5 Illustrator for web mockups. Adobe has made real strides in making Illustrator a solid web mockup tool. I fall back to Photoshop and more recently Pixelmator for the really detailed pixel pushing. While for sketching I use Autodesk SketchBook. When it comes to front end development I am constantly bouncing around to different editors, most recently sticking with TextMate 2’s alpha release. If I had to say what I spend most of my time in, it is Coda or Espresso. I use iA Writer for MarkDown creation, Chrome for browsing, Google for email/calendars/photos/documents, Transmit for FTP, Trillian for IM, Rdio for music and 1Password/Dropbox for keeping track of the important stuff. My web servers are LAMP stacks on Amazon or Rackspace. What would be your dream setup? I am dreaming the new 15” MacBook Pro will be in the MacBook Air form. I would output the video onto two 27” Thunderbolt displays. Panic would release Coda2.

Jesse VanDerPol

Web Designer, SmartyPig

Who are you, and what do you do?

My name is Jesse VanDerPol and I am Web Designer for SmartyPig. I like shiny new hardware, video games, beautiful design, and having a few too many toys on my desk to be taken seriously. My number one goal is to make things pleasing to the eye while keeping them easy to use. I am currently working on SmartyPig’s PhilanthroPig project, which is a payment engine & web app CMS for non-profits. I handle the web site design and front-end development.

What hardware are you using?

I am typing this at work on an 21” iMac (3GHz Core2Duo, 8GB RAM) connected to a 25” display. I also have a Quad-Core HP (3Ghz AMD X4, 6GB RAM) which I remote into for source control and testing.


I have a computer hoarding problem. Much to my wife’s dismay, I own a 15” MacBook Pro (2GHz CoreDuo, 2GB RAM) from 2006 & in need of replacement, a PowerMac G5 (2.5GHz Quadcore PowerPC, 4GB RAM) from 2005, a personally built game PC (3GHz AMD X4, 8GB RAM), 13” MacBook (2.2GHz Core2Duo, 2GB RAM) and two older AMD custom boxes. I no longer turn on the PowerBook or iBook that sit on a storage shelf.


I spend most of my computing time on one of the Macs, my iPhone4 or most recently the iPad2.


For virtual sketching I use my Intuos4 Medium or if traveling a Bamboo Pen&Touch.


For physical sketching and note taking I use a Uniball Vision .07mm, which are wonderful pens with great flow for an affordable price (and spin-able!). Moleskins are what I primarily do my chicken scratching on.

And what software?

As funny as this would sound to my past self, I primarily use Adobe CS5 Illustrator for web mockups. Adobe has made real strides in making Illustrator a solid web mockup tool. I fall back to Photoshop and more recently Pixelmator for the really detailed pixel pushing. While for sketching I use Autodesk SketchBook.


When it comes to front end development I am constantly bouncing around to different editors, most recently sticking with TextMate 2’s alpha release. If I had to say what I spend most of my time in, it is Coda or Espresso.


I use iA Writer for MarkDown creation, Chrome for browsing, Google for email/calendars/photos/documents, Transmit for FTP, Trillian for IM, Rdio for music and 1Password/Dropbox for keeping track of the important stuff.


My web servers are LAMP stacks on Amazon or Rackspace.

What would be your dream setup?

I am dreaming the new 15” MacBook Pro will be in the MacBook Air form. I would output the video onto two 27” Thunderbolt displays. Panic would release Coda2.